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Controversial UK bishop will boycott Lambeth Conference

A leading Church of England bishop will boycott the Lambeth Conference in protest at the presence of pro-gay bishops, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, as reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali will decline an invitation to the Anglican Communion summit which is held every 10 years and takes place next month at Lambeth Palace.

Bishop Nazir-Ali has helped organize the rival Gafcon conference currently being held in Jerusalem, and it is reported that two other English bishops will turn down invitations to Lambeth. A former Catholic, Bishop Nazir-Ali is known for his traditional views and going against the current trends in the Anglican Church.

The BBC website reports that currently about 280 bishops are at the Gafcon conference, many of whom are expected to boycott the Lambeth gathering. The organizers behind the Jerusalem conference have called it a "pilgrimage back to the roots of our faith."

The BBC says the ever-widening split caused by the dispute over homosexuality within the Anglican communion is likely to overshadow the Lambeth Conference. It reports that the dispute was ignited when the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson was ordained in New Hampshire, in 2003.

Apparently, it is the invitation to Lambeth Palace of bishops who helped Robinson's ordination become a reality which has most recently angered some -- although Gene Robinson himself has not been invited.

The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the news of Bishop Nazir-Ali's boycott -- among others -- would be damaging to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

He told BBC Radio 4's Sunday program: "It's part of a drip, drip of bad news that has affected the Lambeth Conference."

The BBC correspondent said the boycott, not only by the Bishop of Rochester but many other traditionalists attending Gafcon, was unprecedented in the Lambeth Conference's 100-year history.

"This meeting is needed really to knit together this very diverse group of Anglicans from all over the world and to, in a way, celebrate what they do have in common, which is an enormous amount.

"So to have this real dent in it is harmful, to put it mildly. And then to have English bishops not coming along, and making it quite clear that they are not I think is going to undermine it further.

"It will show that this dispute has entered the Church of England."

[06/23/2008]

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